Cactus Boy
by indecisive-scribophile
Summary: There's a boy that shows up at Keith's cousin's flower shop. Keith can't keep his eyes off of him; he's just so...pretty. Despite not being more inclined to cacti, Keith serves him, not caring that the boy wants flowers for his female date. When the boy comes back a day later, Keith begins to wonder what this boy's really like beyond his pretty face.
1. Chapter One

**_DISCLAIMER: All characters mentioned in this story besides DO NOT belong to me. 'Voltron: Legendary Defender' belongs to DreamWorks. All rights reserved._**

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Keith likes cacti more than flowers.

Sure, having lived above his cousin's flower shop for the better part of his life, he may be a little biased against the bundles of petals and leaves sprouting out of the ground. But, honestly, could you really blame him? After all, living with a botanist cousin obsessed with the pungent pollen producers could only bring you so much positivity—especially after having done so for twelve years. It was only inevitable that Keith would eventually drift away from flowers' sweet scents and instead have his interest piqued elsewhere.

That being said, Keith definitely didn't expect that that elsewhere would be cacti. Neither did his botanist cousin. But after being gifted one for his birthday, he discovered that he loves the fact that he can own real plants without the hassle of having to give them extensive attention. He supposes that's why his interest in flowers dwindled so quickly: maintaining their pristine condition is too much work for him. On the contrary, the cacti Keith has only need to be watered a very minimal amount, and he assumes they don't need special soil or fertiliser to survive. (His obsession hasn't extended so far as to ask his cousin what's the deal with the growth of his cacti—yet.) Their pots don't need drainage holes, so they never make any mess on his desk. They're the perfect plant for someone like Keith, and he knows it.

Soon after being gifted his first cactus, Keith bought another one of the same size. Then, he bought a slightly bigger one, afterwards a teeny-tiny one. Soon, his bedroom's little windowsill became lined with some spiky, some soft succulents, all of which varied in size. He became quite fond of them, actually. He named a few of them, though he never told anyone. He would never be able to live that down.

The only thing that upsets Keith when it comes to his cacti is the fact that his cousin's flower shop doesn't sell them. According to his cousin, there's no space left in the shop to start selling a couple of potted cacti. Keith understands this perfectly, for whenever he stumbles downstairs each morning, he almost always slams into a cluster of flora his cousin conveniently places right in front of the staircase simply because there's nowhere else to put them. After having lived with him for twelve years, Keith still doesn't know how his cousin manages to arrange everything in a way that it all fit in the shop yet is simultaneously pleasing to the eye.

But Keith, sceptical as always, constantly raises his eyebrows at this whenever it crosses his mind. Couldn't his cousin find a little spot on the cash register counter and sell one or two? Yes, he knows orders don't work like that – it's either in bulk or none at all – but _still_. He had the mindset that if he could buy and collect a couple dozen of cacti, then his cousin could, too.

Despite his scepticism, the whole thing doesn't bother Keith too much. As long as he has his cacti and doesn't have to constantly look at flowers for his entire life, then he's perfectly content.


	2. Chapter Two

"Keith. Keith. _Keith_."

Upon hearing his cousin's voice, Keith groaned quietly. Refusing to open his eyes, his position underneath his blanket remained unchanged, the only moving part of his body his socked feet. Perfectly comfortable curled up on his bed, he didn't see a point in moving.

Keith heard a heavy sigh from the other side of his bedroom door. It clicked open, and the sound of rubber-soled shoes entering the room made Keith furrow his eyebrows. He rolled over onto his side, facing his wall instead of his cousin.

"It's eleven in the morning."

Keith begrudgingly parted his lips, slowly forcing himself to pry his eyes open. His grey walls stared back at him hard. "I'm trying to sleep."

Shiro – completely used to Keith's morning uncooperativeness – didn't move an inch. "C'mon. I have to meet with Allura soon, so I need you to man the shop."

"Again?"

"Yes, again. We have to talk about the shop advertisements."

"Whose?"

"Both." Shiro sighed again. "Look. It's only going to be for an hour this time. You can sleep when I get back."

Keith slowly pushed himself upright, finally having mustered the willpower to do so. He scrunched up his face as he tried to unstick his gums from his teeth, pawing at his eyes with the both of his hands. Eleven in the morning was too early for him— _way_ too early.

"Well, when you went out last week to Allura's, you weren't back until three in the afternoon, and I'm not taking a nap at three."

Shiro cleared his throat. "We had to talk business. That's all."

Rolling onto his right shoulder, Keith noticed that Shiro wasn't looking at him like he'd expected; instead, Shiro's gaze lay down at the ground beneath his feet. Keith squinted at Shiro for a moment, eyeing him up and down. His arms folded across his broad chest, having seemingly swapped his black florist's apron for a white business shirt and navy blue tie. In fact, the only evidence that he worked at – let alone owned – a flower shop were his steel-tipped rubber shoes; other than that, he looked like any other acceptable businessman ready to sell some insurance. His body leaning against the frame of Keith's bedroom door, Shiro looked like he was getting impatient. Of course, this wasn't true, for he had copious amounts of patience when it came to Keith. He just had somewhere to go and didn't want to be late; no wonder he was getting antsy.

"Fine. Just gimme a few minutes."

As Keith sluggishly tumbled out of bed, Shiro seemingly let out another sigh, this time one of relief. "Thanks, Keith. I really appreciate it."

With a delayed shrug of dismissal, Keith said, "Don't mention it."

Within a few moments, Shiro hurried out of Keith's room. Keith managed to rub away the majority of the sleep that clung to his face. Lazily sitting up, he threw a quick glance around his room. Everything was in its place…if you count the floor as 'its place'. Clothes, old high school textbooks, game cases, and magazines were strewn all over his wooden floorboards. His bookshelf and closet were the same in the sense that both had random articles of junk stuffed into them. His desk was no different, for papers littered its surface. The grey walls only added to the room's faded, outdated vibe. Shiro hated how gloomy Keith's room was, and swore that one day, he'd convince Keith to re-paint his walls. If Shiro couldn't manage to do that, then he'd do it himself.

The only spot of colour dotting one measly part of the room was Keith's collection of potted cacti. The succulents' colours all stood somewhere on the extremely vast spectrum of bright green to forest green. Some were round; some were essentially mini tree trunks with branches extruding from them. Some were those fluffy kinds of round cacti that looked safe to touch; others were the spiky, dangerous-looking ones that looked like overgrown pickles.

There were heaps of them, all lined up on his white windowsill in some kind of order only Keith understood. Keith's gaze trailed over them, and after making his bed, Keith sat on it, facing the little, green succulents with his back slouched and legs crossed.

He counted them all, just in case he'd accidentally knocked one off with his arm in his sleep. It was quite easy to do so, for his bed was parallel to his wall. (He'd done it once before during a night of presumed nightmares and wild gesticulating. Worst of all, he only noticed one was cracked and on his floor a week later.) One, two, three…twelve, thirteen, fourteen…seventeen. All seventeen cacti intact and accounted for. So he hadn't knocked over any in the night after all.

Keith nodded gently in approval. He reached out to the cactus nearest him: a relatively large one that was tall and flat, much less round than the others. Its colour danced on the border of muted green and yellow, reminiscent of a forlorn desert. Instead of spikes, it had small, brown nubs dotting its surface, almost as if they were the precursors of spikes that could have been. The cactus' pot was like the rest of the cacti's spread along Keith's windowsill: made out of clay, its colour orange and, when scraped with long nails, would make one's skin crawl because of the stippled surface.

"Platypus."

The word left Keith's lips as a faint whisper. That was its name: Platypus. Why? Because after having Googled the cactus' species soon after he bought it, he discovered that its shape was often described as 'like a beaver's tail'. But naming the cactus Beaver would be too conventional and boring, whereas Platypus reached just the right level of uncomfortableness and seemed just right. Besides, he'd most likely never go to Australia to see one, and platypi were close enough to beavers, anyway.

In the grand scheme of things, yes, Keith knew that Platypus was a stupid name for a plant, let alone a cactus. But nobody besides himself knew that he even named them. Like, come on—naming plants? That's something only kids do. Keith just…didn't want to grow up, even if his constantly annoyed disposition said otherwise.

After stretching one final time, Keith cracked his neck and rolled off of his bed. Expertly finding and stepping on pockets of floor in the mess he'd never bothered to clean up, Keith clumsily tip-toed out of his bedroom and into the apartment hallway.

"Shiro?" he called out flatly.

"Kitchen," Shiro replied a few doors down.

Keith trudged his way down the hallway, stifling a couple of yawns into the back of his wrist. When he reached the kitchen, he noticed that Shiro had already prepared his breakfast—or, at least, the ingredients for it. On the black breakfast bar sat the half-full box of Kellogg's cereal (that Keith may or may not have snacked on the night before) as well as a carton of almond milk. Keith collapsed onto one of the breakfast bar stools and grabbed the milk. After shaking it around, opening the lid, and peering inside it, he narrowed his eyes at Shiro's back. The damn thing was about ninety-eight percent air. What the hell was he meant to do with about two tablespoons of milk? He sighed. At least he didn't pour the cereal in his bowl first. He put the bowl as well as the spoon Shiro had provided him with back into their respective places, settling for snatching the cereal box itself and shoving handfuls of that into his mouth instead.

"Hey, I— _Keith_." Shiro heaved a disapproving sigh. "Why don't you just pour some into a bowl?"

"There's no milk left." Keith's voice was muffled by the chewed-up bits of cereal in his mouth.

"Yes, there is." Shiro grabbed the carton of milk on the breakfast bar that Keith had quickly abandoned. He shook it, unscrewing the lid and showing it to his cousin. "See?"

"I'm not about to eat cereal that has, like, no milk in it."

"Isn't…that what you're doing now?"

"This is deliberate. With _that_ amount of milk, it's kind of like trying to pass a test they didn't study for." Keith's voice had a salty edge to it.

Shiro stared at him for a moment then shrugged, turning back around. "Suit yourself," he said as he downed the rest of the milk straight from the carton.

"Gross."

"You're the one eating dry cereal."

"It's _deliberate_!"

After having stuffed several handfuls of cereal into his mouth, Keith begrudgingly folded the cardboard box's flaps inwards and got up to jam it back in the pantry. When he closed the pantry door, Keith was startled by Shiro, who was standing behind it. He held out a mug of black coffee to Keith. Keith took it gratefully, murmuring a "thanks" before sitting back down at the breakfast bar.

However, Shiro clearly had different plans for Keith and his mug of coffee. "No, no, nope. Put on some sweatpants and grab your apron. You can do that downstairs while you watch the shop for me."

Keith groaned, rolling his eyes. He stood up. "Why can't I wear what I'm wearing now?"

"Because boxers aren't professional, Keith."

"You can't say anything about being 'professional'. Your shop doesn't even have a uniform besides an apron and work boots."

"If it did, I know boxers wouldn't be a part of it. And…is that your _Pokémon_ shirt?"

Keith crossed his arms, tugging the hem of his oversized _Pokémon_ shirt. "Yes, Shiro, it's my _Pokémon_ shirt. And because you didn't tell me to change out of it, I'm going to wear it."

Shiro shrugged, turning his hands upwards towards the ceiling. "You do you. It'll be covered by the apron, anyway."

Keith skulked back to his bedroom to change, much to his chagrin. He hastily threw on a pair of comfy maroon sweatpants he'd bought at some Boxing Day sale, immediately feeling a little more relaxed the moment the soft material came into contact with his toned thighs. After taking a quick glance at himself in the mirror in his bedroom, he ruffled his bedhead a little and smacked his cheeks a few times before deeming himself at least a little presentable. Thankfully, the bags under his eyes weren't as bad as they used to be; he no longer looked like a racoon, unlike a week ago. His faded _Pokémon_ shirt hung loosely on him, doing absolutely nothing to outline the lightly defined muscles underneath it. Keith looked around his abomination of a room, searching for the black apron Shiro had given him on the day Keith first moved in with him. Spotting it on his swivel chair, Keith leaned towards it and snatched it. Around his head went the neckpiece, and around his waist, he tied the frayed ends of the cloth into a cute bow. Shiro was right; you really couldn't see the _Pokémon_ details of his graphic tee anymore except for the bulb of a Bulbasaur peeking out the top of the apron.

Perfect.

Whilst walking down the apartment's narrow hallway, Keith bumped into Shiro, who had just turned into it from the kitchen.

"Hey," Shiro called over his shoulder, "if you happen to like sitting there today, maybe—"

"I don't want to work here." Keith immediately interrupted Shiro. They'd already had this conversation a billion times; he didn't need to sit through it again.

Shiro turned into the bathroom and opened some drawers. "C'mon, Keith. Why not?"

Keith walked into the kitchen. He sunk into the same seat he sat in before, wrapping his hands around his mug of coffee once more. "I've told you already."

Keith could hear Shiro sigh even from a few rooms away. He took a sip of his coffee. It was strong – very, _very_ strong – because of the lack of milk. But that was the way he liked it: black and bitter. Diluting it with milk would only delay the speed at which the caffeine would reach his brain and actually wake him up. Keith knew that most people don't like black coffee; initially, he didn't really like it, either. But after his high school exams hit him like a truck, he had no choice but to start downing the stuff so that he could pull all-nighters and pass them.

Not that it always worked, but that's not the point.

"I know you don't like flowers," Shiro began, to which Keith rolled his eyes at. "I get that. But I thought you found them fascinating."

"The key word there is 'found'." Keith took a gulp of his coffee. He let the warmth emitting from the mug envelope his cold hands, like a candle's flickering flame to an ice cube. "They were pretty interesting, but not anymore."

"Why?"

"Dunno. I just…lost interest in them. Plus, you know, you were getting stressed out over them because of your university exams, so I guess that rubbed off on me." Keith tucked his long, messy fringe behind his right ear so that he could see clearly. "I guess there's only so much pollen you can take before getting desensitised to the stuff."

"Then how do you explain me taking it up in university? And getting through those exams?"

"You're just one of those people that actually enjoys looking at heaps of colour every single day of your life. You don't have an allergy to pollen, you're naturally good at retaining information, and you…" Keith sighed. "You're patient."

Shiro reappeared in the kitchen, the rubber soles of his work boots monotonously thudding against the wooden floorboards. "And you're saying you're not?"

"No, not really," Keith simply said.

Shiro chuckled. "Well, when you're stuck in that bedroom of yours all day, it's no wonder that you shrivel away at the sight of colour." When Keith glared at him, Shiro held his hands up in defence. "Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood."

Despite saying, "None taken," Keith's voice still had an offended edginess to it. However, his voice took on its usual quieter, more reserved tone when he spoke again. "I like my room a lot."

Shiro walked around the breakfast bar and to the kitchen sink where, for some reason, his car keys lay. "I know. I'm not holding you against that." He shoved the keys into a pocket of his black business pants. "You have your cacti there, and as long as you've got plant life in there, then that's okay. Besides—" Shiro's grin was wide. "—you even having plants in there means you're a step closer to being my next employee."

Keith's 'yeah' died on his tongue as he took another sip of his coffee.

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 ** _Author's Note:_** _Hi! This chapter and the next were meant to be one, but then I realised I would be bombarding you all with events, and I personally don't like that when I'm reading stuff. So, that means y'all are lucky because you get an extra chapter earlier than I'd anticipated. Speaking of uploading, I got offered a job that lasts for about a week, so the next chapter probably won't be out as fast as this one. 'Till then._


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